Night Currency

I went flying last night to regain my night currency so that I will be legal to fly passengers at night. Things look very different at night. It takes some extra work and practice to fly safely when there are many fewer visual cues available.

The FAA Requires…

A United States pilot’s license never expires. Instead, the FAA places several currency requirements on pilots:

• I must have a current medical certificate in order to act as pilot-in-command (PIC) of an aircraft. I am currently flying under the new BasicMed rules, which means that my BasicMed online course with self-assessment must not be more than two years old. BasicMed also includes a medical examination by a state-licensed physician.
• I must have completed a biennial flight review (BFR) within the last two years in order to act as PIC. Generally speaking, that means that I have spent some time with a certificated flight instructor (CFI) who has both given me some ground instruction and flown with me. The goal is to assure that I still know my stuff: regulations, reading charts, talking on the radio, airport procedures, etc. etc. etc., as well as knowing how to safely fly my airplane.
• I must have performed three takeoffs and three landings within the previous 90 days to carry passengers.
• I must have performed three takeoffs and three landings at night, within the previous 90 days, to carry passengers at night.

It’s the FAA so there are lots more details to the requirements but, for the sake of this blog post, that pretty much sums it up.

I met the first three requirements but not the fourth. With sunset happening earlier in the evening, and Candy and I planning on using our airplane for travel, I want to be sure that everything is on the up and up when we find ourselves flying home after dark.

Lights

In addition to getting myself ready for night flight, I had a bit of work to do on the airplane. I had already installed several lights:

• Landing lights (headlights) on the leading edges of both wings.
• Navigation a/k/a position lights. Red on the left wingtip, green on the right wingtip, and white visible from behind the airplane.
• White strobe lights a/k/a anti-collision lights.

This weekend, I installed a strip of LED lights under the lip of the glare shield. The EFIS screens are backlit, of course, and each individual instrument has its own lighting. I wanted to add some general lighting of the instrument panel. I selected the CrazedPilot.com LED Cockpit Lighting System in blue. The kit includes a PWC dimmer and 15 feet of strip lighting.

Installation was pretty simple. I cut off about three feet of the light strip, peeled the backing off of the adhesive, and stuck it to the bottom of the glare shield. My glare shield is easily removable so I used a DB-9 connector in the power wire to allow the LED light strip to be easily disconnected. (Why a nine pin DB-9 when I only needed two conductors for the + and – power wires for the light strip? Simply because I had a DB-9 sitting in my parts box.) I drilled a hole in the instrument panel for the dimmer knob. I used a double-stick adhesive pad to attach the PWC dimmer to a handy spot behind the panel. I ran a red wire to the fuse block and a black wire to ground. I secured everything with Velcro ties and cable ties. Then I reattached the wires which pulled loose as I wrestled all of the parts into place. Finally, I was rewarded with this:

Night Flying

With the LED light strip working, I tossed a flashlight in my pocket (just in case everything in the airplane went dark), collected Candy (because an hour of together time while driving to and from the airport is nice, even after 20 years of marriage), and headed for the hangar to do my requisite three takeoffs and landings. While I was flying, Candy hid in the air conditioned car to escape the mosquitoes. I got the un-air conditioned airplane with the door open for ventilation while I taxied but hey! I was going flying!

Taxiing my Bede BD-4C in the dark is much easier than taxiing my old Piper Arrow. The Arrow had a single 100 watt PAR36 incandescent landing light bulb, putting out about 1050 lumens. The BD-4C has a pair of AeroSUN landing lights, consuming a total of 72 watts and putting out 7960 lumens. I love LED lights: More than 7x the light from less than 75% of the power.

At the end of the runway, I piled on the power and barreled down the pavement. Everything was normal: airspeed indicator alive. Oil pressure OK. Engine just under 2700 RPM. At 75 knots, I pulled back on the stick, the nose came up, the airplane started to fly, and as the last of the runway lights slipped behind me, I had a heart thumping moment when I realized that on this hazy, moonless night, I could not see anything useful out the windshield: No horizon. No stars. No moon.

OK… just keep the wings level, I reminded myself. That’s what the EFIS screen with it’s nice big artificial horizon is for. I glanced at the EFIS, confirmed that the picture of the horizon was level, and continued climbing. No sudden movements of the controls. At about 700 feet above the ground level (AGL), I followed my normal climb out procedure: reduce throttle to 25.5 inches and propeller RPM to 2400 and lower the nose to increase airspeed from 95 to 105 knots. When I lowered the nose, the lights of Portage des Sioux came into sight with Alton beyond them. Now life was much more comfortable, since I could again fly without constant reference to the instruments.

At 1000 feet AGL, I reduced power further, leveled out, and turned left to begin returning to the airport to land. With that crosswind turn completed, and a second left turn onto the downwind leg, I had time to breath and enjoy the view. Even though it was hot and muggy, flying at night is magic. I had lights along the north shore of the Mississippi River to my right and ahead of me. In the mid-distance on my left, I had the lights of St. Charles and St. Peters. Below me on my immediate left was the airport and its runway.

Mechanically, landings at night are just like landings during the day. You do all of the same stuff in the same places. It just looks different, which is why practice practice practice. As I came abeam the end of the runway on downwind, I reduced power to begin a descent and set my airspeed for 85 knots. When it looked like I was in the right spot, I turned downwind and set for 80 knots. I turned final and realized that I was too close to the runway, too high, and too fast. I decided right then and there that I was probably going around (not landing) but figured that I would continue the approach because it would be good practice, even if I did not land.

One of the nice things about the laminar flow wing on the BD-4C is that it floats like a brick with the engine at idle power. It’s really hard to be too high on final approach in a BD-4C. I pulled the power back to idle. But in the dark, facing a runway only 2000 feet long, when I was starting too close to the runway, too high, and too fast, there was no way to make it work. I crossed the threshold at better than 80 knots and probably 50 feet in the air. On a properly stabilized approach, I would have been going 75 knots, maybe 10 feet in the air, and carrying a small amount of power to flatten out the approach. I shoved the throttle back in, pitched the nose up for a climb, and announced, “N2468Z going around, runway niner, St. Charles County Smartt traffic.”

I was glad that Candy had our handheld radio so she could hear my call. She would not worry too much though I did realize that I should have called her when I was on final approach and realized that I would probably be going around. Small oops.

The second approach was better, although I misjudged my height above the ground and landed pretty hard, er, tested the strength of the Bede BD-4C main landing gear. It’s strong. I know this.

The third approach was better yet. I extended my downwind father so that I would have more time and space to get stabilized on final approach. I still misjudged my height above the ground and landed pretty hard, er, helped compact the runway concrete. It’s packed down well now. I know this.

The fourth approach, and my third landing, worked out almost perfect. I greased the landing. Having tested the landing gear and the concrete, there was no need for further drama so I managed a nice, gentle touch down.

What I Learned

Here is the track of my flight and there are a few things worth noting. The airport is surrounded by farms, i.e., no lights in the fields around it. Lacking visual cues, my turns to crosswind and downwind were inconsistent. As I flew downwind, it felt like I was too close to the runway so I kept edging away from it. I did this on all four circuits, regardless of how far away from the runway I actually was. Turns to final were problematic, too. Again, there were no visual cues as I made the turn and, since the BD-4C is a high wing airplane, the inboard wing blocks my view of the runway as I turn toward it. On three of the four approaches, I leveled out too soon and had to fly a bit and then made a second, small, left turn to line up on final approach.

I am legal to carry passengers at night, now. And I am ready for more night flight and landing practice. Weather permitting, I will get both on Wednesday. My friend, Steve W., will be in Kansas City and I plan to fly over there. We have not seen each other in a coon’s age and it will be fun to give him a ride in my airplane and catch up a bit.